Is Backgammon the worlds oldest board game?
Many researchers have made this claim for backgammon. Similar claims have been made for other games such as Chess, Go and Mancala. Aside from scant physical evidence a problem with these assertions is that they tend to side-step important issues such as specific definitions and characteristics of a game and thus ignore the process of evolution. For example, what are the appropriate defining characteristics of backgammon? If we include the doubling cube for example, then the game is no more than 80 years old. If we define the game by the physical design of the board and pieces then its ancestry can be pushed back a thousand years or so. But to claim backgammon was played by Ancient cultures requires a very loose definition of the game. The same arguments may apply to other rival candidates.
